Posts tagged nob hill

Baileys on the Beach

Rating: 2

Cost: $6.25-9.25

Location: Albuquerque (Monte Vista and Gerard)

Customized: Yes, added Carne Adovada

Website

Just across from UNM, on Monte Vista lies a new restaurant called Baileys on the beach. This swanky eatery tries to recreate a beach like environment and offer a variety of sea food and pacific style cuisine. Although I was hesitant from the outer design of the place, I have to admit the inside looks rather fantastic. Their theme succeeds rather well and I feel as though it is the closest an Albuquerque restaurant has come to feeling like San Diego. The best part about visiting Baileys is the kind and knowledgeable staff. They want repeat customers, and they are working hard. The Menu is long and varied, and includes such items as Mahi Mahi Kabob, baked clams, and fish tacos. The food here is different, but In a really good way. It was only a matter of time before I ventured to try their Nacho stylings.

Baileys offers one form of Nacho: The Tsunami Nachos. These nachos are a body of chips covered in “Tsunami Queso”. This is covered with lettuce and tomatoes and comes with sides of guac, sour cream, and salsa. For a $3 additional charge you can add your choice of chicken, steak, carne adovada, or mahi mahi.

When the nachos arrive you will be greeted with an attractive arangement of colors and textures, but you will also notice that the nacho suffers from some serious drawbacks as well. For $9.25 this Nacho is small compared to other Nachos in the $10 price range. Many of the chips have little if any cheese on them at all. The lettuce and tomato portions are so small that they probobally shouldn’t have bothered puting them on the nacho. Most upsettingly, however, is that the carne adovada that I payed $3 extra for is in exremly short supply. I shared this nacho with my friends and found I only had a few bites of meat myself. What made this more sad is that the Meat was without a doubt, the best part of this nacho. The Carne Adovada was amazing! In fact, its some of the best I have had in years. It worked fantastically with the Nacho, atleast the small parts of the nacho that had it. The guacamole and sour cream and salsa were also tasty, and worked well with the nacho. As most of you know, I prefer shredded cheese on my Nacho, but I am always willing to give a fair shake to the liquid variety. The Tsunami Queso on the nachos is made from a double roasted green chile. Sadly, I didn’t really taste the chile in it to much. Rather, I only tasted a strong Velveta-esque flavor. Its unfortunate that these nachos weren’t much better, because Baileys has some amazing things on their menu. Their meat is amazing, and their burgers are fantastic. I highly recomend people try this place out, just not the Nachos. There other food is where its at. 

Serafin’s Chile Hut

Rating: 3

Cost: $5.25-5.75

Location: Albuquerque (Central and Solano)

Customized: Yes, added ground beef

Website

Located in the eastern area of Nob hill is a new little restaurant known as Serafins Chile Hut. This eatery is easy to find thanks to an attractive Zia sign angled over the edge of Central Ave. When you walk inside you will find a quaint little establishment with attractive wall paintings, nice tables, and an excellent ambiance. The menu is small, but well crafted, and includes the majority of New Mexican classics, all at fantastic prices. The staff is one of the nicest I have ever ran into, its obvious they love this restaurant. I myself have had several of their menu items, and I must say they are delicious, particularly the enchiladas and sopapillas. This is one of the most comfortable restaurants I have ever been in, and I plan on becoming a regular.

Serafins offers one form of nacho, which is a standard body of chips covered in liquid cheese and covered in pickled jalapenos. They were kind enough, upon my request to cover these nachos with a generous helping of their ground beef.

For the incredible price of $5.25 i was expecting a tiny snack sized Nacho, intended as a brief appetizer for their other dishes. However, when it came I was shocked at how massive this dish was. Although not the biggest, it is definitely amongst the larger Nachos I have had. I wasn’t sure if it was liquid or shredded cheese when I ordered, and I have to admit I was disappointed to find that it was the liquid variety. As you all know, I prefer shredded cheese a thousand times over. Apart from the ground beef I requested, this nacho looked like a Ballpark style nacho, which wasn’t surprising considering all the Time magazine’s featuring baseball covers adorning the back wall of the Hut. I also noticed that the jalapenos, which were thankfully pickled, were also diced, and spread more evenly amongst the nacho. I had never had diced jalapenos on a nacho before, only cut. I Have to admit I really enjoyed them. They allowed me to enjoy them without them overpowering each bite due to their minute size. The liquid cheese is better than most that I have had in my day, and it penetrated all the way to even the deepest of the chips. The chips themselves were of excellent quality, also better than most other places offer. The real strength lied in the meat. Serafins has some of the best ground beef I have had at a restaurant, and they complimented the nacho perfectly. It was fine and crumbly and spread across the entire nacho. In the end, the Nacho was balanced, layered well, and every chip had every topping on it. For those that don’t like complex nachos, this is the Nacho for you. As I said earlier, its a ballpark style nacho… but to be fair, I wish ballpark Nachos were as good as the one from Serafins. I really enjoyed this, and It stands as a great example of how to make a tasty straight forward Nacho. These are worth eating, but I must first recommend some of their other platters, like the combo plates or the enchiladas, because they will knock your socks off.

Two Fools Pt.2 

Rating: 4

Cost: ~ $8.75

Location: Albuquerque (NE Heights)

Customized: No

Website

This isn’t a double post, so don’t worry. I had already reviewed the Classic Nachos from Two Fools half a year back, but I had been intending on returning to sample their “Irish Nachos.” I recently had the pleasure of returning to this quaint little pub and discovering if their Other nachos could compete with their classic offering. For an Irish pub, they do a great job of maintaining Irish/British centric food on their menu, while also offering fusion cuisine and offbeat alternatives. 

Two fools offers two kinds of nachos. The first, which I reviewed in an earlier post are their Macho Nachos, which are a classic style dish. The Second is their Irish Nachos, which takes a far more unique approach. These nachos are comprised of a body of Potato chips, covered in Cottage Pie Beef and cheddar, with tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream on top. 

When these nachos first arrive, you are stricken by how different they look. They have a much darker color, due mostly to the cottage beef. Their size is great, it is comparable to their classic nachos. They are also layered well, another similarity with their other nachos. The tomato and lettuce on top are very appetizing, and the sour cream portion is good. The cheese was melted perfectly on the chips, so no complaints there. Not knowing what to expect, my first bite was admittedly weird. Although the cottage beef was delicious, I admit they offer a flavor I have never previously associated with being Nacho-ie. However, something weird happened, something that has never happened before. 4 or 5 chips in, I started to really like them. Usually I grow tired of a dish the more I eat, but this one grew on me at an astonishing rate. By the end of the nacho I was satisfied, and extremely pleased by this new found combination. The Cottage beef offered a hearty thick sauce to the dish, which countered the saltiness of the chips and cheese. Unlike most nachos, as the chips got soggy, they became more enjoyable, because of their similarity to soaking up stew with bread wedges. I recommend these nachos with a slight warning. I can see how some would hate it, but just give it a try and live a little. If you don’t like them after one chip, give it a few more, it might grab you too!

** Update. I recently (9/17/11) increased the score on these to 4. I have found that in the last few months I have craved these nachos on a weekly basis. I would argue that I crave these more than most other nacho’s that can be found. I felt upon further consideration that these definitely deserved a 4 rating, not the original 3 I gave it.

Cesar’s Mexican and Greek

Rating: 4

Cost: ~ $9

Location: Albuquerque (North East)

Customized: Yes (with Carne Asada)

UrbanSpoon Entry

This Nacho is a veritable Meat Mountain!

Cesars is a very unique restaurant located in Albuquerque’s North East side. It is a Mexican and Greek restaurant that is open 24 hours. I can’t stress how neat it is to be able to get a Gyro and Torta at 2am after the bars close. Their menu is large and varied, and despite the look of the restaurants exterior, it has one of the cleanest kitchens i have ever seen. The food quality is excellent, but it is also very polarizing. People either love it, or they hate it.

Cesars offers Nachos based on a variety of Meats: Chicken, or Carne Asada. Since I have an affinity for Carne Asada, this is the Nacho of choice for me. This Nacho comes with a liberal portion of Carne Asada and shredded Chedder piled on freshly cooked chips. It also comes with Guacamole, Sour Cream, and pico de gaio. All of these toppings are segregated into different areas of the plate on top of the chips.

Let it be known that these are very different Nachos. Even though I gave them a really High rating, they are definitely not for everyone. The Meat that Cesar’s uses is some of my favorite. It is thin sliced tender steak that is flavorful. I can say with confidence that the meat is everyone’s favorite part of this Nacho. I can’t stress how important that is. The chips are freshly cooked in house, and are very crunchy. The pico de gaio is a very welcome oddity to the standard nacho recipe, and is probably one of the reasons this Nacho will be polarizing. If you order a side of Jalapenos, you get a dish of pickled carrots, and 2 large uncut jalapenos. Pickled carrots are an interesting pairing with Nachos, something that will also be polarizing. There are only two major problems I have with this nacho. The First problem is the guacamole. As excited as I am for the presence of Guacamole at no extra cost, this Guacamole isn’t very good at all. Its over processed, bland, and awkward tasting. Others disagree with me, but I don’t enjoy the flavor of this guacamole much. The other major problem I have with these nachos is that the cheese is very rarely melted throughout. Its common for at least half the chips to have unmelted cheese present. Although both of these are problems, they don’t ruin the nacho. In the end it is a tasty treat I recommend to most people, Especially the late night crowd. If you want Nacho’s at 2am, stay away from taco bell, go to Cesars and get a real Nacho!

O’Niells Pub

Rating: 2

Cost: ~ $11

Location: Albuquerque (Nob Hill)

Customized: Yes (Added Ground Beef)

Website

Once again, the lighting is dim, But the Nachos look Pretty Good

O’Niells is located at the very eastern end of Nob Hill, and despite being near few other reputable establishments, draws a large crowd daily. Despite being coined as an Irish pub, the majority of the food is standard American Restaurant fare: Burgers, Sandwiches, Salads, and Pasta. The food is tasty, and the ambiance is nice. On busy nights, the service is often very slow, but they are always very friendly. I recommend O’Niells as a lunch time establishment since I find its primary draw to be its food, and the service is always best when it is least crowded.  Its fitting that I review the Nachos from Oniells Pub right after my review of the Two Fool’s Nachos. Both O’Niells and Two fools represent the only significant Irish Bars in the Albuquerque area, and each has its own dedicated loyalists and defenders. This, however, is not a debate as to which is a better establishment… no, this is only a competition of their respective Nacho making skills!

O’Niells offers a single style of Nacho within their starters section. These Nachos are a body of chips covered in ground beef (added cost), black beans, Tomatoes, green chili, and shredded cheese. It comes with a side of Sour Cream and Salsa.

I am very split on my feelings about the O’Niell Nacho. The portion is great, as it could easily fill two people, or provide appetizer for 4+. Much like Two Fools, I am ecstatic that they included black beans w/ their nachos as it is a great addition to any Nacho. The addition of Tomatoes is also well received. However, that’s really where the high quality elements stop. The green chili applied is minimal, and the flavor is bland compared to other restaurants offerings. Due to the slow service, the cheese had already hardened and was cold. This made separating the chips with cheese difficult (often requiring the use of two hands). No layering was employed in the creation of these nachos, so after the top layer is consumed, there are a lot of plain dry chips below. The sour cream amount provided is laughable, and Guacamole is completely absent from this nacho (and not offered as an add on). The biggest trouble with the O’Niell’s Nachos is that meat was so expensive. The addition of Ground Beef to the Nacho cost an additional $3.25 (just under what a pound of free range gb costs at sunflower). All this added fee gets you is a very small amount of bland ground beef that is almost missed if you didn’t know it was in the Nacho. i find this unacceptable considering the quality and quantity of meat on their fabulous burgers. There needs to be at least a double, nay, triple the amount of meat. I find all of this sad considering the high quality that the other O’Niell’s food has. Normally I would rate this a 3, as an average Nacho, since it is nothing spectacular. However, considering that it is also the most expensive Nacho I have ever seen, I can’t rate it any higher than a 2, since it just isn’t worth it.